Monday, May 26, 2008

I bought a cooler. My next batch will be all-grain. In the meantime...

Apparently, John Maier of Rogue is in cahoots with MoreBeer. He gave them the recipe for the I²PA. They claim he uses one of their brew sculptures (must resist...) for playing around with his own stuff, including this variant on one of Rogue's best, the Brutal Bitter.

Grains steeped for 30 minutes at 160F. My OG came out low for the recipe, so the alcohol will probably be around 5.5-6% instead of 7-8%. The low IBU rating is a result of weak bittering hops (tastybrew.com gives a typical Newport as 15.5%AA for 140IBU in this recipe).

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Update 7/31 - After about 2 months of waiting I hit this with the CO2 and it's very nice. Light in body and alcohol. Has that German lager aroma.--

I think the first Kölsch I had was the Pyramid Curveball. It was light, refreshing, grassy, and delicious. Gordon-Biersch also makes a decent Kölsch, which I found a little odd since it's technically an ale, and they tend to stick to lagers. Cool fermentation and a lagering period makes the style a really clean session beer perfect for slow summer days. This one I picked up as a kit from MoreBeer. It should be pretty decent with mild bittering from the Glacier and a noble aroma from the Vanguard. I tweaked the boil time on the second hop addition for a little more bitterness to more closely match the style's profile.